7 Answers
7

Use DropBox. Put the APK in your DropBox folder. Open up the DropBox app on your phone, find the apk, tap on it, and it should download it to your phone and then install it.

Use the SD card. Plug your phone into the computer via USB. Mount the SD card drive. Copy the APK into the SD card. Unmount your phone. Browse to the APK using a file browser app such as Astro. Tap on the APK and it should present to install it.

There are countless other ways to do this, but these two are probably the easiest.

Is it possible to just email the APK to yourself and then open it from the email app? I presume you would've said so if it's possible, but just pointing out another possibility (which might be easier).
–
RicketFeb 2 '11 at 17:36

2

@Ricket Email should work too, or at least it does on my Droid1 running CM6 (Android 2.2). I'm not sure about older versions of gmail.
–
Bryan Denny♦Feb 2 '11 at 17:44

I prefer using the ADB. However, It's a little less user friendly. This isn't the easiest way, but it will work without an SD card and will work without the device being internet connected(some devices(tablets) aren't).

At the command line you would type:

adb install "full-absolute-path-to-apk-here.apk"

The "tools" directory of the SDK must be in your path for the adb command to work.

I think all the above answers are very relevant. Next time I would recommend downloading the APK directly to your device from the mobile browser. You will save the time and hassle of moving to the sd card or uploading to dropbox to download to your phone.

Install an app like 'WiFi File Explorer' (available in the Play Store) to your phone.

From the app, you set your 'Home' directory (like /storage/sdcard) and the app connects to your WiFi network and serves that Home directory and gives you a URL (usually an IP Address and port) that you can now use any browser from any PC or device (on the same network) to connect to and view/copy/move/delete files to and from.

Use that method to get the .apk file from the PC to your phone. Then just make sure the option to install APKs from alternate sources (Settings->Security->Unknown sources on Android 4.2.2) is enabled and if you don't already have a regular File Explorer app on your phone get something like 'Total Commander' and open the APK file from there. The install process will kick in and you're good to go.

Make sure "unknown sources" is enabled, plug the device into the computer, drop the .apk into the sd card and use the web browser to go to file:///sdcard, tap the apk in question, say yes to the "this file may blow up your phone" scare notice, then tap the "file downloaded" notification and it's installed.